The One-Day MPA

Many of the local government managers I am affiliated with have an MPA. My guess would be 75% of city and county managers possess the graduate degree in public administration. The coursework varies, and the time to complete as well, but generally you have the core topics of management, HR, budgeting/finance, some theory, decision-analysis, public policy and a few others.

For the coaching clients I work with, I often tell them to do a one-item reset at times (or review) and focus on an element of the MPA. Management. Communications. Budgeting. HR. Policy. Pick “A course” and re-review it against what you are doing now. Take communications. Do a check-in and self-assess what you are doing or not doing in communications. How’s your internal messaging? Your department / director meeting cadence? External messaging with residents? Marketing of your tourism, Main Street or economic development efforts? Press release content, quantity and quality? Website presence? Social media work? Go one by one in the items in this course area and appraise progress, or static-ness, and develop a customized, individual “lesson plan” for development or refinement of areas that need work.